Vi­jay Mallya wants to re­turn to In­dia but he is “in­ca­pac­i­tated” to travel as his pass­port has been re­voked by the In­dian author­i­ties, the liquor baron’s coun­sel told a city court on Fri­day.

Chief metropoli­tan mag­is­trate Su­mit Dass, who had di­rected Mallya to be present be­fore him in a case of al­leged vi­o­la­tion of for­eign ex­change rules, was in­formed that he was “mak­ing all ef­forts to have the re­vo­ca­tion of pass­port set aside”. Mallya, cur­rently in Lon­don, sought ex­emp­tion from ap­pear­ance in court on the ground that he is not been able to travel to In­dia with­out a pass­port.

“... ever since the re­vo­ca­tion of his pass­port, the ap­pli­cant (Mallya) has been stay­ing in Lon­don and is not in pos­ses­sion of any req­ui­site travel doc­u­ment, which could pos­si­bly en­able him to travel to In­dia,” Mallya’s coun­sel said. Mallya said he was shocked to learn in April that his pass­port was sus­pended by the In­dian Pass­port Au­thor­ity with­out giv­ing him a “per­sonal hear­ing”. Mallya said he was mak­ing all the ef­forts to have the re­vo­ca­tion of his pass­port set aside.

Ad­vo­cate NK Matta, ap­pear­ing for ED, how­ever, told court that Mallya was evad­ing pro­ceed­ings in sev­eral other cases and sought time to re­ply to the plea moved by him.